Terrorism: December 3, 2003

Archives

Saudi Arabia continues to battle it's home grown Islamic terrorists. Because of the civilians killed by some of the terrorist attacks,  much of the population is behind the government effort, and providing tips on terrorist activity. Thus more terrorists are rounded up each week. In the last few weeks, there have been several raids that yielded large caches of weapons and explosives. On November 27th, a raid seized a truck, painted to look like a military vehicle, that was equipped with a 2,790 pounds bomb. There were three canisters of cooking gas in the truck as well, a common al Qaeda method to increase the destructive effect. AK-47s, RPG launchers, 1300 rounds of rifle ammo and military uniforms were seized, and two terrorists were killed. The government did not say what the target of this bomb was, but in the last few days, warnings have been issued about potential attacks against Saudi skyscrapers, hotels and housing areas for foreigners. This was followed by warnings of possible attacks against Western targets in Kenya. The Saudi counter-terrorism effort has led to the arrests of hundreds of terrorists and active supporters. The interrogations have revealed connections between al Qaeda members in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait and the large Arab populations in East Africa. Kenya, it was revealed, was a popular al Qaeda base because port and police officials were easily bribed by Arabs. This despite previous terror attacks by Arabs in the country. The Saudi interrogations apparently also produced the information that led to the arrest of 14 terror suspects in Europe. Searches of the suspects homes yielded weapons, bomb making material and al Qaeda literature. While Saudi Arabia has long been the source of many al Qaeda recruits and fund raising, it is now becoming a major source of information on how and where al Qaeda is operating.

 

Article Archive

Terrorism: Current 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contribute. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   contribute   Close